This disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses and reservation methods, and more specifically to an image forming apparatus and a reservation method enabling easy reservations of an available image forming apparatus and making the period of time that the use of the image forming apparatus is prohibited for the reservations as short as possible.
Conventional reservation systems for image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimiles, and multifunction peripherals, are generally configured to reserve the image forming apparatuses by simply designating a previously slotted time frame. However, the reservation systems of this type have a problem that if a print job is not finished within the reserved time frame or is finished before the estimated time is up, the reserved time frame does not match the actual operating time period.
For the purpose of solving the problem, a management server communicably connected to a client terminal has been disclosed in the past. This management server includes a user operation attribute storing means that stores user information and operation attribute information associated with the user information, the operation attribute information containing actual operation time, which is segmented for every user's operation of an image forming apparatus and is the time duration that the user pertinent to the user information has operated the image forming apparatus in the past, an operation reservation accepting means that accepts from the client terminal the user information and an operation reservation instruction containing desired operation termination time of the image forming apparatus, and an operation attribute extracting means that retrieves user information corresponding to the accepted user information from the user operation attribute storing means and extracts operation attribute information associated with the retrieved user information. Furthermore, this management server includes an actual operation time totalizing means that adds up the actual operation time contained in the extracted operation attribute information, an operation start-time calculation means that calculates the time to start operating the image forming apparatus in accordance with the accepted desired operation termination time and the total of the actual operation time, and an operation start-time notifying means that notifies the client terminal, which has accepted the operation reservation instruction, of the calculated operation start time. Each user inputs a desired operation termination time of a copier in consideration of the distance to the copier and user's familiarity with the operation of the copier, and is notified of an operation start time in which the user can finish his/her copying job by the desired operation termination time, and therefore the management server can provide a mechanism for presenting an appropriate operation start time to the user in consideration of the distance between the copier and the users and the users' familiarity with the operation of the copier.